Here and in the three videos below what my concern is good writing coupled with great planning creates excellent craft. How might one dispute that? I certainly cannot and would not. It is however, not something new. The current presentational rhetoric used to sell Sage's media team to the world has been written to have relevance and sell their services but the concept of knowing one's audience and merging their content with the receiving capacities of the audience is age old. Are we to react to the mass marketing as the differentiational agent? Even collective co-creation is a reflection of a social environment bent on re-branding to increase profits with a minimum of change to same said product. The observations are excellent and which I might use a different more extended terminological language choice conceive, create, gather, craft, learn, re-gather, re-craft, learn, modify, repeat. I would argue this is part of our shared human conditions.

I came back to this week first thinking that I had not annotated it, except concerning Team Thumper. Second, in doing so reviewing it seemed prudent. Throughout these eight weeks one item among many I have found challenging to comprehend is the what appears to be a now pervasive idea that our technology is new, therefore so must our ideas be. Yes, JSB's notions are intriguing but they are not new and marginally reframed if that. However, they are profitable for the games industry. Repetition for a person in the arts or trades is one key to their success at building a skill-set. As a broken record with a small repair, does the concept of dispensing with grades stem from one particular technology? I would answer no it does not. Learning for grade alone would not allow a person like me to follow many passions with vigor. This is not an easy item to formulate an easy glib answer. How can one view "onboarding", "habit-building", and "mastery" be viewed as phenomenologically different than any high-level skill set, learning for the most part takes place within a community, how are these different? Why or how is the player's journey any different than any other intricate skill or skill-set? The answer is for me it is not. I am curious as to the differentiation.

Hello Team Thumper, This just a test, if it had been an actual alert . . . then we would have evacuated to our Lunar Hideaway! Best wishes, rod schubert

Aaker's video is very compelling and extremely well-produced. However, that aphoristic wisdom that I have referred to elsewhere is to my knowledge a sentiment held across many times, spaces, and places: "Teach me and I might know, tell me a story and I will understand." Her integration of the stats was truly interesting!

The affect of this has been to coalesce my thoughts that skills and creativity can be taught very freely with great adaptive abandon. However, how one approaches imparting the skills required for tool use, regardless if it is a painter's brush or a digital painting program, take some time and subtle guidance on the teacher's part. If the requisite amount of time, which varies depending on the individual, is not tended to, the effect is less than desirable. I am not suggesting perfection, not at all! However, if one's capacity to express themselves using their new tool is enhanced with even a modicum of skilled guidance and proper pacing on the teacher/guide's part they create with an abandon far in excess of what they think their skill level is.

Yes, how one creates narrative is incredibly important. That begs the question if the idea that when presenting one must know their audience is valid, has not excellent content delivery always be a story craft. Again, week after week the answer is yes of course it is. Freytag's story arc is one compelling analytical explanation but not the only one either. The Russian literary theorists do not dismiss him but he is just one example reflecting the thought worlds of his time. Those who make the content meaningful are the best teachers would be my experience. Teaching skill sets requires one to be very adaptive and know their audience. What one is teaching's content contains determines their narrative structure does it not? If theory explains what has already been produced could it not be stated the content controls the form? Yes, would be my answer.

Interesting for me is that for an individual whose Master's program is heavily into critical theory as mine is, should I presume that those in education are not? I would think not given the many incredible thinkers who inspire young people and the inspiration my current class colleagues have been for me.Since, I have known this statement since I was about twelve it shocks me to read it in a collegiate level course. My friends teaching in the Freshman writing seminars discuss similar items. In my case this is fifty-five years. No one can be completely "inoculated against media manipulation" that is shear folly to think that. When Edward Bernays composed his text Propaganda in 1928 or Walter Lippmann published Public Opinion in 1922 or George Creel writes on how they sold World War One to America mass media and narrative propagation have been around for some time. My question is to learn in this century does not one need to know how this century got here?

Again, how can one argue with these goals? They are spot-on! My critiques have been how is this new and if thought to be new, why? Again, are these authors not guilty of making a pitch? Read the two paragraphs below my highlights. David Ogilvie could almost have written this as advert copy.

I cannot argue with the backstory for developing social and economic justice through critical thinking that can craft alternative narratives. My question is, are these laudable goals being used a rhetorical tropes to create a sales pitch that reads as an academic presentation? My hunch is these authors are unaware this is occurring? What I find particularly distressing is that everything has become an warrant driven argumentative process that leads to conclusions that are worthy closing pitches when the sales person asks for the money and one willingly parts with their cash.

Perhaps this argumentative prose is the best argument one can make for employing creative writing that leads to narrative creation that then uses technology to understand how our mediated world works? Perhaps!

How can anyone argue with the backstory premise that critical thinking should be part and parcel of the educational process? We did the same critical thinking in the 1960s. A little conflict known as the Vietnam Conflict had deployed over 550,000 U.S. armed services personnel to South Vietnam. There is no one named "Charlie" in Vietnam. The "Spanish Flu" is now thought to have originated in South Central Kansas. Creating videos, creating stories, whatever it takes but how is any of this new?

If a student cannot write but a technological approach motivates said student terrific. Consider if the technology gets in the way of another student's learning do current educators not see their might be a problem here? If I understand the assertions being made throughout this piece critical theory and understanding power dynamics are being used as selling points for a technologically driven thought world? Did Prezi pay for this?

This is wonderfully topical but what is the difference rhetorically between creating a meme or an aphorism that comments? Presentation technology seems more important that critical thinking. Is the massage the message?

In other places I have made reference to Walter Lippmann, George Creel, Edward Bernays, and the very many other Advert folks who have been doing this for a long time. P.T. Barnum writes about Humbugery in the 1860s. Selling political candidates is not a new phenomena, is it? Using visual rhetoric to control perceptions goes back at least 5,000 years before present. This is why I have continually asked what is different today? Please do not respond the Internet for each generation has confronted their own set of challenges. What I suggest is that lessons formerly taught across communities have been placed at the feet of the educational community. Has the time come to remember we all have a hand in the next generations well-being?

Teaching information cultivation skills is multi-faceted on this we can all agree, I think! For eight-weeks I have read what was taught in Freshman Communications at the University of Minnesota from Fall Quarter 1971 through Spring Quarter 1972. Have the technological tools changed, of course. Has the concept of rhetorical criticism both visual and spoken, of course they have grown culturally robust. Is the digital mantra the latest shiny new tool to catch everyone's eye and aggrandize a few? Most likely. Should I presume that the good old days were actually better? I hope not!!!

Again, another group selling an idea, which is an excellent idea, but again is the tool the focus or the cognitive skills developed within a human mind? Also, was this type of teaching dismissed in schools for a segment of time?

Yes, I understand this concern but is it reasonable? The person I grew into was from that bleak state. Is the problem with children or adults that are unwilling to understand the guiding young people to adult status takes time and extreme effort? For every intervention a counter can be developed. Is not critical thinking a life-long learning process? Also, does this study have a longitudinal baseline?

First, how could any moderately sentient individual not be aware of this need? Second, since I do not work in the schools, how has the content changed concerning social justice. My children were educated in the Boulder Valley District and I was quite impressed by the social and economic justice piece presented by their educators. Is the pressure being placed by less than human governance types that are wont to grab folks?

This is a comment I would stand behind and defend. However, it is also true of any creative item, just as the clip from Mad Men. In the ancient world their were many types of wisdom, they experienced ideas everywhere. Is this not similar to all worlds. People gather, they come together in myriad ways, and in doing so share their stories which in turn imparts wisdom. Technology changes and ours today is truly awesome but is this all not temporally relative across the long duree?

I admit freely and openly that I have been writing my reactions as I went. My reading process was to skim first that do a very close-in read. Kocurek has provided an interesting piece for consideration. Here her intention becomes very clear and that I have a great deal of respect for. What I find distressing is that in an industry as lucrative as computer gaming is, does one need to justify it using a Walter Benjamin's text which is written discussing another medium. Gaming stands as an excellent contribution to our world without any need for outside justification. How can any awakened person not see what has been achieved and it potential?

What I have read to this point and the message which justifies what did not need to be justified is about pedagogical uses of teaching tools to enhance learning. As each technology from Gutenberg on becomes more robust I suggest they deliver content in ways that are more easily understood. Narratives are part and parcel of every good sales persons pitch tool-box. How information is imparted effectively is audience specific. Knowing one's audience is not new, is it?

I will keep asking this but what is being justified here and why does this have to be justified. Is the digital story telling community seeking to prove its worth? Are manufacturers needing to bring virtual reality into the lucrative education market place. A great story teller takes one to an altered reality at a fraction of the price. What is the intention here? What!!!

I looked up this author and besides teaching at a prestigious institution, she lists herself as a game designer. None of that should be dismissed but using games and teaching is not something new. I do not play nor like computer games, yet, when watching a competent gamer one sees first hand its value. For the student needing that model to dismiss it is very troubling to me. However, the flip side is true as well.

How is it that all stories are not viewed as some level as mediated? In a live performance venue the storyteller is actively engaged with their audience. Theater, unless it is interactive, is mediated. Ugh!

Here I am seeing Kocurek's moves and think the source of my discomfort with this article is that she may need this for her understanding of storytelling. That is perfectly fine for this author and I can respect needing this approach. It is not an approach I find compelling or needed. Throughout these weeks I keep wondering if the course narrative is to justify the world of digital games. It is a thought world I find neither compelling nor for me. However, it is one I find fascinating as it creates digitally networked communities. Since I have always had the highest respect for computer gamers and those who create the games, the sales pitch was unnecessary.

This is wonderfully expressed and captures my sentiments far better than I could!

Throughout this paragraph I think this article has move closer to Benjamin's knowing. Here the idea "in the sense of the types of fiction-driven games" misses the point of theater, performance, writing, and story-telling. Digital or otherwise using the word games does an injustice to games and human artistry in this author's analogy. What I wonder is as a former performer, I wonder if the issue for me resides in reading what one is supposed to do and the reality of what one does? The injustice is not an intentional one on the author's part to be certain. Again, I wonder if the profitable course to building empathy is not writing about it but in leaning to perform with empathy?

Here Benjamin is quoted at length but one could also read Benjamin as not analyzing the stories truth or falsity nor its factual nature, he is discussing the backstory which information provides for narrative recreation. Would it not have been more productive move to examine the nature of truth, which Benjamin does extensively, and understand its malleability?

Having read Walter Benjamin, this text in particular, I would not have seen it as having a resonance with what I remember (That could be false and I do plan to re-read his text.) from Benjamin let alone McMurtry. My intuition tells me that Kocurek is a writer grabbing for a justification that would not resonate with my remembrance. I freely admit I may be off-base but reading this multiple times the claim especially entering the concept of "well-designed narrative games, games invested in personal storytelling" seems off-base. Is this now the digital world's view, stories are items that should be manipulated?

Again, I agree that "It's precious" but at some levels are not all stories manipulative? I suggest that while the Internet appears to be amplifying again should we not go deeper. Should we not ask is the amplification being noticed a temporal phenomena, one whose amplification is relative to each generation. The nostalgia many, including me, are moved by, is that limited only to our technologically savvy world? Again, I suggest that the line between manipulation and empathy are not binary but part of the same emotional universe. Perhaps they are some of the many touchstones that we as human beings share in common. Maybe and again maybe not!

I agree wholeheartedly with everything in this paragraph, until the sentence "That's the bad" and ask is it. Even if one disagrees, and I have done far more than my fair share, is it not important to also understand that the story someone else relates to us or crafts to manipulate is important to understand? What I mean is if one is to engage another, especially to create dialogue, their story allows me to understand where they are coming from. This of course is multi-directional. In essence what should be noted the other's badness or my reaction that their story is bad? Is it more likely to be both? Needless to say I do not have an answer but think the admonition not to judge is quite important for communication. One could say the heroes journey begins when one can hear the thousands of questions contained within our shared humanity.

I love Chimamanda NGozi Adichie's presentation and the points she is making. Her story is very compelling. The report about the professor making the presumption that her novel was not authentically African was particularly telling. Also, the idea of starting the First American narrative passed in many, many primary and secondary schools in the United States start the narrative from the vantage point of the arrows launched to protect the First Peoples' homeland. For me this gets to the point of story telling. My area is ancient literature and that may explain why so much of the time I have been taken aback during this course. Adichie is where I have come to. This is excellent! Excellent!!! One starts writing what they know, using what they know. It that not the heroes journey, they stories rooted in our souls, percolating up? Then we can have many, many, many stories.

Is the crux of all this to create a virtual world? Are we more interested in a reality that is virtual, that brings in touches of the less-than-acceptable physical world, and then hopefully the marvelous new on-line world will solve problems that appear intractable? These discussions sound suspiciously like even those John Dewey was involved in thought when he writes his Art as Experience his intention is to experience a physical world. Would it not be a bit more prudent to guide students through their educational journey from a facilitative vantage point? Yes, we have many more tools but some require skill-set development that a virtual world supplement but does not supplant. The trades are an example of skills whose content is now delivered through a variety of means, including a heavy component that is from the digital world. What is not forgotten is that a skill also takes repetition and thought in a trade oriented education. Would educators be wise to investigate not only improving the digital efficiencies of content delivery but also how hands-on, physical world activities integrate with the robust digital domain? Perhaps not everything is market-driven nor should it be.

On its face nothing is improper about the desire to deliver content efficiently or in new ways, nothing! However, this is where I think a moment for pause is called for when a commercial person, within the first paragraphs start to build a comparative advantages case for their services. One cannot argue that educational modalities change. I also agree that we are entering for me a truly cool phase of democratization. Is the devil in the details moment how the world's peoples spread these latest technological gifts. Is the FOSS approach a sustainable one given other costs? I do not know.

Could it be posited that a steady democratization has been occurring since the eighteenth century. This was fueled first by the confluence, at least in the Occidental world, of not only the initial stages of the industrial revolution but also a realization that Indigenous peoples in what would come to be called the Americas had developed alternative governing strategies, especially what is coming to be known about the Atlantic Seaboard nations on the North American land mass. My point is user experience is part of an expanding movement back to democracy through communication technologies. With one pivot point to be considered is the importance of the human user. Again, I do not profess to know but having entered the working world in the early 1970s the analysis here is skillfully selective. Please define "as competitive" when compared to a teacher's starting salary. Also, I note never having across any software engineer that could be classed as "run-of-the-mill."

I choose this as a starting point for a reason. Many of the articles available, and I do think Bruce has done an admirable job of sorting through these to get the least self-serving ones for us to read; none-the-less iDesign is a for-profit company. While there is not one thing wrong with private enterprise or well-governed market places (para-phrasing Adam Smith), what are the expenses involved? All of this comes with a set of costs and how will this be paid for? Free and open source software places one cost savings area into the data science realm through not compensating programmer types. The digital divide, as I mentioned elsewhere, is not an abstraction but a systemic problem. Have we come full circle to Plessy v Ferguson with a de facto separate but equal in the digital domain? I love all my digital tools but choose to photograph using film and not own nor use a cellular telephone. This is done to establish balance for me and is my choice to make based on my digital privilege. Does that digital privilege also track closely with my white privilege? I would answer a resounding yes, I do think so. Is that privilege one reason these pieces read like high-end adverts? A key ingredient in advertising design, copy and visual, is know one's audience. Based on most of these author's vantage points, I would say they have all done rather well in packaging advertising content into a scholarly context. Excellent rhetorical subterfuge.

New modes and ways to interact with one's audience have existed for thousands of years. From what can be discerned in the Mediterranean Basin theater, especially Roman Theater which includes its borrowing from the Greeks and other cultural groups invisible to us, was interactive in their day. Did the ancient world or even years closer to the twentieth/twenty-first centuries have these new tools? No of course not. Participatory theater is not new nor is the idea of participation in literary creation. Our new opportunities to expand on what appears to be a human propensity for participation through technological progress is fantastic but is this process being outlined new? I think not.

The author's disclosure statement answered my question about any money trail to them, at least that they reported. I too am a product of the learning should be fun thought world. This I suggest is only marginally important if it does not lead to one understanding that deep learning requires a commitment to excellence and embarking on an impassioned lifelong inquiry. Phenomenon approaches if rooted in phenomenology may be similar to this, I do not think they are, but I would not rule out-of-hand the Finnish instantiation being topically grounded. What I suspect is different is not commercializing the educational tools. Have we succumbed in the United States to making everything about profit and not the bliss that comes from the love of learning? I guess one stays tuned-in for the next engaging opportunity.

This reads like a market strategy for developing the parameters needing to be met for a toy to come to market. Is this the world of education or a world the seeks capital investors. The size of the heart comment could have come directly from a focus-group summation of prior to product launch marketability potential. Wow!

Again, this is wonderful to read that students were bonding in their own way to Laika. It increased their awareness of the pratfalls and pitfalls in our world. However, is this the first time this has ever happened in a classroom? We were so staid and placid in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Calmly going about our lessons learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Hickory sticks were optional. Summerhill was a distant dream in a far off land. No! This is my point throughout this article, life did not become creative and accessible after the Pentium chip comes to market. Do we have access to some remarkable technologies? Absolutely and I would not trade them for anything, well almost anything! What distresses me is that contemplating a world that could have been so much earlier but did not come to pass. That is distressing to say the least.

This is wonderful about the Robot Heart Stories but how is this new other than using current technology. Then the news Lyka's Adventure becomes commerical in 2015. Is the take away here, develop one's digital narration capacity to its fullest and they too will make a profit? Hopefully, these folks are engaged philanthropic people.

Gamification may be new to Nick Pelling but it builds on strategies that came into the public sphere much earlier. Robert McNamara used the term we gamed the strategy in the early 1960s and the concepts go back much further than him. They were breaking down actions into component parts long before the dawn of the Einiac. Gamification, gamed the system, playing the game of life are part of the same intellectual phenomenology of dissecting, analyzing a situation to its fullest and then playing what if strategy games for contingency plan development. Is the newest part its mass-dissemination? Again, I think not. I am exceedingly curious if the authors have a monetary interest in this specific curriculum? This is a crass question and for that I am sorry but this reads like an slightly intellectual sales pitch.

What is new about this other than the content is delivered using the Internet? Are these assertions meant to justify technological content delivery assertions over the real-world of working in a job with human mentor guides? If this was done to supplement the working, business world, terrific. However, the pitch sounds like it is in lieu of. Can these authors honestly state that a game culture driven synthetic content provided a more meaningful experience? Quite interesting to be certain.

Since I am not a classroom teacher this claim is quite disconcerting at least on its face. Given the state of the United States' politic at this point, can one honestly state that transmedia experience fosters deeper communication with a text? I keep coming back to this but McLuhan was not being glib in the statement concerning the mental massage that exists within media. Certainly learning how the each mediated item can manipulate content is clearly a benefit in one's learning but is that the skill being acquired in reality or the endless mental massaging that easy technological access provides the more accurate assessment?

While I do not disagree with the premises proffered here in the broad context what I found interesting is that the TED Talk was a critique of being formulaic, not an issued approval. Basic human capacities for information gathering and then processing from the phenomenological sense could be narrated descriptively to be very similar or dissimilar. In the hands of a skilled narrative creator the affective aspect allows the medium including text rhythm, data inclusion or exclusion, and performance skills to all massage through the medium of delivery. I am borrowing from McLuhan but what is important here is to understand the cognitive process not as one to be manipulated through narrative archetype but its commonality to our humanity. Aristotle in the Politic describes human kinds nature as being innately political, community oriented. Hannah Arendt discusses quite heavily the transient nature of truths from the vantage point of the body politic. Bakhtin discusses the concept of the novelist, epic poetic creator, or story teller reflecting the many voices swirling around them as they start to create. What is important for me is that these are common items that transcend technologies for dissemination. Are we more concerned with the latest items and tying into our past or understanding that it is the interplay between formula and fresh creativity that propels human kind into broader awareness of themselves. First American Nations have vastly different narrative pacing and thematic materials from their Afro-Eurasian counterparts. The narrative of Sky Woman might be the same or it can be viewed as dissimilar. From my vantage point this all depends as to who the analyst might be and what time period they live in. Are we not reflections of the time we walk under the sky.

As a post script to the longer part above, Vonnegut reminds one that creative output is a dance between formulaic and new pathways for expression. Regardless as to Vonnegut's propensity for tongue-in-check absurdity, his satirical approach issues a challenge to being overly formulaic.

While I do not disagree with the premises proffered here in the broad context what I found interesting is that the TED Talk was a critique of being formulaic, not an issued approval. Basic human capacities for information gathering and then processing from the phenomenological sense could be narrated descriptively to be very similar or dissimilar. In the hands of a skilled narrative creator the affective aspect allows the medium including text rhythm, data inclusion or exclusion, and performance skills to all massage through the medium of delivery. I am borrowing from McLuhan but what is important here is to understand the cognitive process not as one to be manipulated through narrative archetype but its commonality to our humanity. Aristotle in the Politic describes human kinds nature as being innately political, community oriented. Hannah Arendt discusses quite heavily the transient nature of truths from the vantage point of the body politic. Bakhtin discusses the concept of the novelist, epic poetic creator, or story teller reflecting the many voices swirling around them as they start to create. What is important for me is that these are common items that transcend technologies for dissemination. Are we more concerned with the latest items and tying into our past or understanding that it is the interplay between formula and fresh creativity that propels human kind into broader awareness of themselves. First American Nations have vastly different narrative pacing and thematic materials from their Afro-Eurasian counterparts. The narrative of Sky Woman might be the same or it can be viewed as dissimilar. From my vantage point this all depends as to who the analyst might be and what time period they live in. Are we not reflections of the time we walk under the sky.

As a post script to the longer part above, Vonnegut reminds one that creative output is a dance between formulaic and new pathways for expression. Regardless as to Vonnegut's propensity for tongue-in-check absurdity, his satirical approach issues a challenge to being overly formulaic.

I agree with this but after reading this article thoroughly twice, my strategy was to annotate it from back to front. What I am left with is above Norlin Library at C.U. Boulder by George Norlin, "Who Knows Only His Own Generation Remains Always a Child." I read it when I first visited Boulder in 1982 and was not a student at C.U. Boulder. That sentiment has become a guiding principle for me and insured my humility. Questing for knowing only ceases when our current conscious realm passes. However, have we as a United States' social whole become children? Should every solution be a new one or are we not building on the technologies from our past? Is the latest that new or a new wine skin for fermented juice from grapes? Is it possible that it is both? I suggest that understanding well the broad panoply of human ideas and the worlds they came to pass within and then their influences would be one good starting place.

I would like to take issue with the idea presented a couple of lines before this that schools are "training autonomous problem solvers." That was not my experience as either a young person starting in Kindergarten in the fall of 1958 or through high school graduation in June 1971. After having three children pass through Boulder Valley Schools with the last to graduate from high school in 2009 I was very impressed with the amount of collaborative effort they had learned and the improvement on my own experiences. Social media did not exist during my initial education and was coming into full play for my children which to me begs the question as to is there a true problem? While I love this article's challenges has the lack of specificity come with another set of challenges? Where what is being proffered not being practiced? Is not the goal of being progressive to constantly strive for improved delivery of services to one another and nowhere more important than in education?

Is play not also a process that allows children to creatively become engaged with life? Again, if the materials at hand are cellular telephones with computing power greater than the ground based machines that placed humans on the moon, are children learning the basics of creativity or being controlled to consume? If all learning is mediated by adult design, how do children learn to think independently?

If one is engaged they quest for knowing and make decisions to ameliorate troubling situations but then continue their continual inquiry. One must withhold judgement and constantly pursue knowledge to become an engaged participant in their world. This is not a new sentiment but a paraphrase of Second Century Skepticism. What constitutes a fact? how does belief interplay with fact? Is fact localized to what one's empirical senses can apprehend? Is there one truth?

Is the learning not most enhanced when observation, experimentation, and reading from primary resource materials that are more than textbook compendiums deployed? While this is a bold statement and one I do not disagree with, is the textual component of learning without merit? Could one infer that what is missing in the textual material might be from its poor presentation of information in the textbook?

This seems like an ideal teaching set of moments that could introduce students to the far reaching world of philosophy and critical thinking across the globe. Information and data reconfiguration is part and parcel of all critical thinking. However, does the emphasis on computer modeling place more importance on the tool than on the actual mental machinery inside the human mind? At what age do children understand that the tool changes as an extension for human kind?

Is this done to become more adept at understanding oneself or a rationale on the part of game manufacturers to sell more games. This sounds like the same justification for athletics with a semantic twist. Do they have the same consequences? I do not know that is an honest question.

Does this imply that the intricacies required to prepare for a role are presented during the game-playing process? Currently are period sources consulted by the students and then the process used by actors to prepare for learning? Learning to engage with the past requires empathy but also allows for engaging all parties invovled dialogically, i.e. why are you doing this and you doing that? The young person engaged in a deep-seated reaction but can the class as a whole extend that experience into a conversation with period resources?

I am becoming increasingly concerned reading this as to what constitutes learning currently. It strikes me that instead of allowing children to play without adult intervention, new subliminal forms of thought direction are being channeled. Needless to say I may well be misreading this.

Interesting projects to be sure and reminds me of the changes that occurred during the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s. Are these adult lead games or is this actual child centered play that is inspired by the classroom experience.

For Maggie: https://sites.google.com/site/coloradomodelunitednations/Home

I thought the one major goal in education was to promote the love of learning and through that inspire a life-long process. Is this new or new to this author?

Dear Colleagues: I am one of those folks who has copyrighted material. It is not of any consequence nor do I claim it to be. However, no one, has my tacit permission to use it as it stands. I would regard that as a blatant act of plagiarism. If it generates ideas, propels humanity forward (none of it is that good I assure anyone reading this), or is immeasurably improved, excellent. That has been the way of the world for eons. Tread lightly storytellers, folks like me are not going to cause issues. However, those of us that worked hard to develop our artistic skills at points in their life did not produce their work to have it borrowed (actually I think my sentiments run much stronger and I will leave it at, ripped-off.).

Also, in the History of Human Ideas parallel development and simultaneous occurrences of concepts are not new or even special. Again, this borders on issuing a false equivalency argument by using chronology as causality. The cause tends to the innately human capacity to be confronted with similar phenomena and developing similar solutions. What is common to all human beings and has not changed in its approach to processing information to our knowledge? The human brain and it acts within community as well.

Is everything a remix? Of course but that question begs an answer that is intended to justify infringing on the creative soul's work product. Look whom the white artists "remixed" from and think about the events of late. Is this tacit white privilege in action. Ray Charles was soundly criticized by the Black Gospel community, soundly.

We have entered a new era in our capacity to "remix." I ask have our moral-ethical precepts "remixed" as well? In commercial design one is taught from the beginning: If one can do they have an equal responsibility to know when they should not! Thank you, rod schubert

Hello Colleagues: To diverge is divine and I wholeheartedly agree! However, first one must well understand what it is they are choosing to diverge from. In the arts that requires understanding what has come before an individual. This is not done through slavish devotion to one's past but knowing from that conversation a broader, inspiring divergence will burst forth. Production tools vary and have been democratizing but the human being remains in their present which is bounded by the past and future. What constitutes tradition? Best wishes, rod schubert

Hello Colleagues: I do not know if I found the egg but Bruce, I am at this point. Getting to this point leaves me more with a question than a statement. What I can state is that buzz-words appear to be alive, well, and exercising their control over the living. Yes, that is a statement but many questions remain for me. What constitutes learning, human agency, student agency? Have these not always been there, especially for those of us in progressive schools during the 1950s and 1960s? Is learning not life-long and fluid? When does our experience base become knowing? Technology produces tools which are built on other tools which in-turn build other tools. Have we not lost our way a bit and forgotten that even the Internet is merely a means to an end, an information conduit? What constitutes an educator's reality? McLuhan's the "Medium is the Massage" was published over fifty years ago. Change is thought to be inevitable, but have we changed or only our tools? I have no answers which is to my discredit. The egg being sought is not mine at present. Best wishes and apologies, rod schubert

This conclusion, especially these last sentences, focus on why I think we are in a transition time, learning to negotiate the new intellectual spaces technology is providing. When oral transmission becomes memorialized through scribed documents, scrolls move to codices information dissemination changed, Gutenberg's first presses, telegraphy, telephonics, radio, television, and beyond; all saw narrative transportation changes. Currently we have a multi-media explosion that can be used for good or ill but as humanity becomes more savvy the ill will become less prevalent. The notion of learning about media and information will gain much traction when we all learn how to create twenty-first century media products which then provides each person an understanding that all stories are fabricated. I suggest that through practicing the creation the critical thought is instantiated.

Wow, this is an incredibly powerful assertion that I agree with wholeheartedly. It will segue nicely into their recommendations away from Common Core's ideological indoctrination of minds. Narrative transportation might benefit by incorporating its theoretical parts with various metaphor theories (perhaps is does and that would have been beyond the scope of this article) because I suggest part of the transportation process combines with the story receiver's authorship that allows the narrative recipient to make sense of the information sequentially, spatially, and then understand from the story teller's art. Seeing the challenges posed by current technologies is important but eventually that same narrative transportation will be harnessed to bring a much higher-level of critical thinking. Information recipients with engage thinking can be transported into the story's thought world with great comprehension.

This gets to the heart of what I am contending when historians claim their analytical sequencing is fact, especially when extending into antiquity. Who becomes the arbiter of truth when purportedly factual events sequenced within an exquisitely produced narrative might be accurate but contained within a wholly fictional sequence? Again, I am asking, what is truth and who establishes it?

On the surface the authors' assertion might appear pedestrian but I think not! Throughout this article they allude to but never succinctly confront that which professional historians may claim as a well-argued factual presentation is when examined as literature looks suspiciously similar to narrative used as propaganda. Event sequences are stories, are they not? Analysis is hopefully well-reasoned opinion. However, in the end "our vicarious experience of the world can be mediated through" a well-composed narrative.

What I find particularly compelling here is the presentation of "narrative transportation theory." However, since each person is in dialogical engagement in a media presentation, who is the author? Is the authorial process completely understood? Bakhtin, Barthe, Derrida, Frye, and on all discuss this yet as someone who is not a K through 12 educator I rarely hear their theoretical voices broached. Why?